Dev1 Galaxy Forum / Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:56:21 +0000

I have run Vuu-do on a machine from 2005 that has 1 gb of ram, and it runs fine. I run Devuan every day on a machine with a simple dual-core APU at 800 mhz with 4 gigs of ram and never have a problem.

But if you need translations you would need to look elsewhere as Vuu-do don't do that. Vanilla Devuan works great for that.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (zapper) — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:17:55 +0000

@Babarosa I wonder if palemoon would work on that device. I am sure firefox would be too heavy though. And obviously use ublock origin legacy from their addons.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (Babarosa) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 10:12:57 +0000

I am running Devuan 5 i386 on an AsRock K7VT4A Pro Motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and 2 GB RAM :-)

The system runs perfectly well and stable, and the reaction time of applications is more than acceptable and useable.
The only weakness is, as steve_v already mentioned,

...the demands of a modern standards-compliant web browser...

Web browsing works, is slow and using more than two tabs is not a good idea.

To my mind, the OP shouldn't face any problems given the specs of his machine :-)

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (steve_v) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 08:54:18 +0000

waiting to happen?

Breaking news: It happened some time ago, and the majority of distributions and desktop environments are using it.
Personally I don't think wayland is ready to replace X, but many seem to like it and that's a perfectly valid choice.

As for the OP: Sandybridge with 8GB of RAM will run pretty much any current distro acceptably well. The biggest problem will be, as always, the demands of a modern standards-compliant web browser.
If it only has 4GB installed, look into upgrading it. Most machines of that generation can take at least 8GB, usually up to 16. AI insanity notwithstanding, used DDR3 DIMMs are dirt cheap.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (zapper) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 08:15:41 +0000

@trinidad who would want a headache waiting to happen?

That's what wayland is...

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (trinidad) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 14:30:40 +0000

Lilidog is still in active development. If you want a labwc Debian Wayland minimal try Waydog.
https://dbts-analytics.com/waydogrev1.html

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (Camtaf) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:41:58 +0000

My Chromebook runs Devuan/XFCE no problem, it is a 2GB ram 16GB eMMC machine, which I mainly use for a quick booting internet connection when I just want to look something up, of course, I could have installed less on it, but it works perfectly, except for sound, with Devuan.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (pcalvert) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:17:54 +0000

Although it's not a Devuan derivative, my plan is to install Alpine Linux on old laptops. I was given a couple of old Chromebooks, and one of them only has 2 GB of RAM. It doesn't make much sense to me to install Devuan on it when I can use Alpine instead.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (einpoklum) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:58:31 +0000

Fair enough... but since it's been suggested to me to try Devuan vanilla with a more lightweight window manager, I'll first go with that and see if it sticks. Starting with LXQt (just because it was the default choice before LXDE). I should try that underlying-Debian-to-Devuan conversion procedure sometime.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (ceeslans) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:33:53 +0000

This thread says lilidog has been sunset. Hasn't it?

Not quite. The lilidog forum is no longer existing, but development of lilidog (and the barebone 'beardog') is continuing.
Lately, new versions (based on debian13) were released: https://distrowatch.com/12724

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (einpoklum) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:48:27 +0000

> Any lightweight Debian distro, e.g. ... lilidog

This thread says lilidog has been sunset. Hasn't it?

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (Devarch) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:10:13 +0000

Any lightweight Debian distro, e.g. https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lilidog and migration https://www.devuan.org/os/documentation … libur.html

It is as easy as this.

Or generously shared config for WM from this forum https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5742

Or just https://antixlinux.com/ which can be aslo switched to use Devuan's package base.

Plenty of options.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (Camtaf) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 09:55:58 +0000

Not only do I run Devuan/XFCE on my 'main' computer, (i3/8GB ram), but also on Dual Core with 4GB, it even runs quite happily on 2GB Dual Core Thin Clients that I have, I'm just a normal user, internet, music, videos, spreadsheet, etc.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (dzz) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 01:55:50 +0000

ExeGNU and Refracta have similar resource usage. Trinity Desktop is not officially supported in Debian/Devuan, an issue for many although it has run well on Devuan for 10 years. Preference for style is a major factor.

Best option of course is a base debootstrap install and build what you want from there without "recommends" (that's how ExeGNU images are built).

Numerous lightweight options to choose from! But those live images give at least a preview of what is possible and are installable.

lxqt: Although qt-based it doesn't have the overheads of full-on kde plasma. One of many lxqt reviews:

https://itsfoss.gitlab.io/blog/lxqt-100 … ktop-ever/

i7 with 8GB ram? Definitely on my wishlist!

re browsers: The more marginal ones seem more prone to "fingerprinting". Using librewolf here currently (identifies as firefox but maybe a false sense of security).. just mind how many open tabs on a low-end machine.

Re: Is there a Devuan derivative targeting old hardware/laptops?

dummy@example.com (brocashelm) — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 22:22:20 +0000

In fact, if you want something even lighter, give Exe GNU/Linux a shot. That one is like Q4OS with using TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment, based on KDE 3.5), but without any Systemd. Uses Refracta's installer.

Also, see this article comparing the different DEs (hasn't been updated in years, but much of the information is still true to this day).